Rainbow Bar and Grill – the Site of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe’s First Date

Rainbow Bar & Grill (11 of 11)

One locale that I had long heard mentioned repeatedly in the various books and articles I had read about my girl Miss Marilyn Monroe over the years was the Sunset Strip’s Rainbow Bar and Grill – where Joe DiMaggio took the starlet for their very first date.  At the time, the establishment was known as Villa Nova, an exclusive Italian eatery that, sadly, shuttered its doors in the late 1960s and moved south to Newport Beach.  Because the historic West Hollywood restaurant had changed hands and names over four decades ago, I had always assumed it bared little resemblance to the spot where Joe and Marilyn had once dined.  So imagine my surprise when, while doing some online research, I discovered that the locale still looks pretty much exactly the same today (well, the exterior, at least) as it did when it was first established in the 1920s!  I immediately added the spot to my To-Stalk list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on over there shortly thereafter on a Saturday afternoon to grab lunch.  Unfortunately, Rainbow Bar and Grill only serves lunch on weekdays, so I had to put my stalking plans on hold.  I did manage to get back out there, though, this past October, when my good friends, fellow stalkers Lavonna and Kim, were in town visiting from Ohio.  And I have to say that the place was well-worth the wait.

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Stepping into the historic restaurant, with its wood-paneled walls and red leather booths, is like stepping back in time, but in a good way.  (The place was all decked out for Halloween when we stalked it and does not usually have ghosts and cobwebs adorning the walls and ceiling.  Winking smile)

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Rainbow Bar & Grill (4 of 11)

The historic Sunset Strip eatery was originally founded as the Mermaid Club Café in the late 1920s.  (You can check out some really cool 1930s-era video footage in which the restaurant appears here.)  In 1933, the establishment was taken over by director Vincente Minnelli and renamed Villa Nova.  Due to the strict “no press” policy, the site became a haven for the Hollywood elite.  Just a few of the luminaries who dined there include Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, and Dean Martin.  Minnelli even proposed to future wife Judy Garland at the restaurant one night over dinner.  And, as I mentioned above, in March 1952 (or 1953, depending on which website or book one happens to be reading), Joe DiMaggio met Marilyn Monroe there while on a blind date.

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As the story goes, Joe became smitten with Marilyn after seeing pictures from a promotional photo shoot she did with the Chicago White Sox – a photo shoot which I just found out took place at Brookside Park in Pasadena!  (And yes, I’m planning to stalk it!)  The baseball icon asked a mutual friend named David March to set the two of them up shortly thereafter.  Marilyn agreed, but only if David would chaperone.  The double date took place on a Saturday night and Marilyn, as usual, showed up about two hours late.  And while the legendary blonde did not expect to like the sports star, the two hit it off – over a plate of Villa Nova’s Scalloppine of Veal (according to the book Dishing Hollywood) while sitting at Table 14 (according to Marilyn Monroe Dyed Here).  Apparently, Marilyn was quite amused – and surprised -at the many patrons who approached their table that evening – not to meet or catch a glimpse of her, but to shake the hand of the world famous Joltin’ Joe.

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Rainbow Bar & Grill (5 of 11)

I had read on several websites that a plaque commemorating the rendezvous was on display at Rainbow Bar & Grill, but I could not find said plaque anywhere, nor did any of the servers know of its existence.  Lavonna did manage to spot a gold plate with Marilyn on it embedded in the sidewalk out in front of the Rainbow, though.

Rainbow Bar & Grill (8 of 11)

Rainbow Bar & Grill (9 of 11)

In the late 1960s, as the Sunset Strip became less and less ritzy, Villa Nova moved south to the exclusive Newport Beach area and the eatery’s original site was sold to music producer Lou Adler and restaurateurs Elmer Valentine and Mario Maglieri.  (While the GC and I were in Newport this past December, we stopped by Villa Nova’s OC locale to do some stalking, but it was, sadly, closed at the time, so I was only able to get photos of the exterior.  I do definitely plan on going back, though.)

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Villa Nova Newport Beach (2 of 4)

Valentine, Adler and Maglieri founded a new restaurant named Rainbow Bar and Grill at the old Villa Nova site and feted its opening by hosting a party on April 16, 1972 in honor of singer Elton John.  It was not long before the establishment became a hangout for actors and rock-n-rollers alike and such stars as Jack Nicholson, Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Mick Jagger, Sylvester Stallone, Robin Williams, Robert De Niro, Nicolas Cage, and John Lennon have all dined there at one time or another.  The Beatles even once partied at Over the Rainbow, the Grill’s second-floor private VIP area.  And John Belushi supposedly ate his last meal (lentil soup at Table 16) at the Rainbow before passing away from a drug overdose on March 5th, 1982.

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Rainbow Bar & Grill (7 of 11)

Besides being a celebrity hangout, Rainbow Bar and Grill is also a filming location!  The restaurant has been featured in two Guns N’ Roses music videos, including the video for their 1992 hit “November Rain”.

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You can watch that video by clicking below.

The exterior of the bar also briefly appeared in the group’s video for their 1993 song “Estranged.”

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You can watch the “Estranged” video by clicking below.

The Rainbow Room was also featured in the Season 2 episode of Californication titled “The Great Ashby” as the spot where record producer Lew Ashby (Callum Keith Rennie) took Hank Moody (David Duchovny) for a drink after the two were released from jail.

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You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking all of the exterior photographs of Rainbow Bar and Grill that appear in this post!  Smile

Rainbow Bar & Grill (1 of 5)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Rainbow Bar and Grill is located at 9015 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood.  You can visit the eatery’s website here.  Villa Nova Restaurant is located at 3131 West Coast Highway in Newport Beach.  You can visit the Villa Nova website here.

Alfred Hitchcock’s House from “Hitchcock”

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Hold on to your hats, my fellow stalkers, ‘cause today’s post is going to be a long one!  A couple of months ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, called me up to let me know that he had just watched a screener of the 2012 biopic Hitchcock (he works at a high-profile production company) and, knowing my penchant for the Master of Suspense, suggested I run right out and see it for myself as soon as possible.  Thankfully, because Helen Mirren, who played Alma Reville, Hitch’s wife, in the flick, had been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award, Fox Searchlight had made a digital screener available for SAG members and I was able to watch it shortly after Mike’s call.  I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the film and learned quite a bit lot about the legendary director that I had not previously been aware of.  The locations (all of which are in L.A.) and design of the movie were quite stellar, to boot!  And while I recognized that the exterior of the Hitchcock household had been portrayed by Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ former Beverly Hills manse (which I blogged about here), what I did not realize (until Mike told me) was that the interiors were filmed at a residence in Pasadena – one that I was actually quite familiar with and had even blogged about before, way back in October 2008.  Because the post did not cover the full filming history of the home, though, I figured the place was most-definitely worthy of a re-stalk and ran right out to do just that a few days before our move.

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The gargantuan Tudor mansion pictured below was originally constructed in 1902 as a Craftsman-style winter home for a Chicago novelist named Gertrude Potter Daniels.  Just three years later, in 1905, the property was sold to a new owner, Salt Lake City mining magnate Susanna Bransford Emery Holmes, aka “Utah’s Silver Queen”, and her husband Colonel E.F. Holmes.  The couple moved into the property fulltime in 1910 and immediately began an extensive $37,00- renovation project that significantly altered the dwelling.  Holmes dubbed her new residence, which was completed in 1922, “El Roble” in honor of a massive oak tree that once stood on the premises.

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Hitchcock House - Interior (2 of 11)

Today, the dwelling, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, boasts a three-story, twenty-room, 7,300-square-foot main home, ten bedrooms, six baths, a 1.35-acre plot of land, a two-story freestanding gate house (pictured), chauffeur’s quarters, a pergola, and formal gardens.  You can check out some fabulous photographs of what lies behind the mansion’s front gates here.

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Hitchcock House - Interior (8 of 11)

As you can see below, the land on which the home sits is absolutely gargantuan in size – as is the home itself.

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Hitchcock House - Interior (4 of 11)

The beautiful residence, which once belonged to Occidental College, was featured as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design in both 1975 and 1996 and its gardens have appeared twice in Sunset Magazine.  The place has also been spotlighted countless times onscreen.

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Hitchcock House - Interior (10 of 11)

As I mentioned above, the exterior of Alfred and Alma’s mansion in Hitchcock was actually that of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ former Beverly Hills home.  (Big THANK YOU to Mike for making the Hitchcock screen captures which appear below.)

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The interiors were a mixture of both El Roble in Pasadena and studio sets.  The areas of El Roble that appeared in Hitchcock include the wood-paneled study, which you can see a real life photograph of here;

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the living room, which you can see a real life photograph of here;

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and the entryway, which you can see a real life photograph of here.

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The Hitchcocks’ bedroom;

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bathroom;

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and kitchen were all sets constructed on a studio soundstage.

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To create the rich interiors of the Hitchcock homestead, production designer Judy Becker consulted historic photographs of the couple’s actual former residence in Bel-Air (which I blogged about here).  Of the refrigerator pictured below, set decorator Robert Gould (whose father, as fate would have it, served as a second unit director on the original Psycho) said in a fabulous November 2012 Los Angeles Times article , “We chose the fridge because of the interesting handle with the round detail.  It had an innuendo of a peep hole, a subtle way of referencing Hitchcock’s voyeurism throughout the film.”  I absolutely love learning little tidbits like that!  God is in the details, as they say.

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In the fabulous 1978 comedy Foul Play, El Roble stood in for the supposed San Francisco-area residence belonging to Archbishop Thorncrest (Eugene Roche).

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During Season 4 of Falcon Crest, El Roble appeared several times as the mansion where Cole Gioberti (William R. Moses) and Melissa Agretti Cumson Gioberti (Ana Alicia) lived.

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In the Season 2 episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled “Cross Jurisdictions”, the house was where former chief of detectives Duke Rittle (John Kapelos) was tortured and killed.

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In the Season 3 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “Unhappy Medium”, El Roble was where the Drake family – Susan (Dawson’s Creek’s Mary-Margaret Humes), Nikki (a very young Elisabeth Moss), and Sydney (Austin Highsmith) – lived.

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In the Season 4 episode of The Closer titled “Fate Line” (which I actually got to watch being filmed – you can read my blog post about the experience here), El Roble was the residence of murdered horror movie producer Sean Thompson (who was never actually seen onscreen).

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In the Season 4 episode of Greek titled “Agents for Change”, El Roble stood in for the home belonging to Evan Chambers’ (Jake McDorman’s) parents, Mr. Chambers (Kevin Kilner) and Mrs. Chambers (Kathryn Harrold).

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According to fave website OnLocationVacations, the yet-to-be released movie The Pretty One, starring Zoe Kazan and Jake Johnson, did some filming at El Roble this past June.  And while an April 1996 issue of Los Angeles Magazine stated that The Godfather was also filmed on the premises, I scanned through the flick while doing research for this post and did not see the mansion pop up anywhere.

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You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location and for providing all of the Hitchcock screen captures.  Smile

Hitchcock House - Interior (11 of 11)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The home used for the interior of Alfred Hitchcock’s residence in Hitchcock is located at 141 North Grand Avenue in PasadenaTom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ former mansion, which stood in for the exterior of the Hitchcock house, is located at 918 North Alpine Drive in Beverly Hills.

Robert Kardashian’s Former House

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Last October, while I was knee-deep in my Haunted Hollywood postings, fellow stalker/prolific author E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, emailed me to let me know about his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Sixteen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story, from Tallulah Bankhead to River Phoenix, which he thought I might be interested in.  Well, one look at the tome on Amazon and I knew I had to have it!  When it arrived, I devoured the thing in two sittings and practically filled up my entire To-Stalk notebook with new addresses, the most exciting of which was the Encino home where Robert Kardashian lived in June 1994 and where O.J. Simpson supposedly stayed in the interval leading up to his arrest for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.  In fact, it was from there that O.J. left on the morning of his infamous slow-speed white Ford Bronco chase.  That day in Simpson’s life has always fascinated me as there are so many unanswered questions about it.  What led up to that infamous chase?  Where was O.J. coming from and where was he headed?  So, after reading the blurb about the house in E.J.’s book, I just had to run right out and stalk the place.

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According to a June 18, 1994 Los Angeles Times article, Kardashian leased the gargantuan contemporary dwelling, which sticks out quite a bit from the ranch-style homes which surround it, about a month prior to the murders, after the builders failed to sell the place.  I believe that Kardashian lived there, along with then fiancé Denice Shakarian Halicki, for only a very short time.

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Robert Kardashian's House (11 of 12)

As the story goes, on the morning of Friday, June 17th, 1994, O.J. Simpson was charged with the double murder of Ron and Nicole and was set to turn himself in to the LAPD at their headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.  His lawyer, Robert Shapiro, later changed the plan and asked instead for O.J. to be taken into custody at Kardashian’s home, where the football star had been hiding out from the media with his then girlfriend Paula Barbieri.  (It was a good hiding place, too – according to the same L.A Times article, none of the neighbors had any idea The Juice was there.)  When the police showed up, though, Simpson was long gone.  Sometime that morning, he had disappeared from the residence with his good friend and college roommate, Al Cowlings, and headed towards Orange County, either to visit Nicole’s grave at Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest or to escape to Mexico, depending upon which version of the story you believe.  The LAPD issued an all-points bulletin for O.J. and Cowlings at 2 p.m. and, according to Wikipedia, about four hours later someone in the O.C. spotted the duo and notified police, who later found them driving north on the 405 freeway.  What followed became television history.

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Robert Kardashian's House (7 of 12)

Kardashian’s former home, which was originally built in 1957, but drastically remodeled shortly before he moved in, boasts five bedrooms, five baths, 7,104 square feet of living space, and a 0.40-acre plot of land.  The dwelling was last sold in 1997 for $830,000, but appears to have been put on the market again recently during which time it was described as a “fixer-upper.”

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Robert Kardashian's House (5 of 12)

Property records also show that some sort of movie shoot took place on the premises in March 2000, but I am unsure of what exactly was filmed.

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Robert Kardashian's House (12 of 12)

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, for telling me about this location!  Smile  You can purchase his Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites book here.

Robert Kardashian's House (10 of 12)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Robert Kardashian’s former home, where O.J. stayed before his infamous car chase and subsequent arrest, is located at 16254 Mandalay Drive in Encino.

My Favorite Pasadena Places – Part II

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As promised, today’s blog is a continuation of my top ten favorite places in Pasadena. If you missed the first installment, you can check it out here. And now, on with the post! (Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for taking the above photograph of Pasadena City Hall. I swear, that guy takes THE BEST pictures. I was just telling him the other night that if I ever get rich, I am hiring him to take photos for my site fulltime. I’ll do the writing and he can handle the pics. We’d so be unstoppable! Winking smile)

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6. Old Town Pasadena Historic District – If there’s one thing this stalker loves almost as much as stalking, it’s shopping. I absolutely hate being inside, though, so when I first moved to Pasadena and discovered Old Town’s historic shopping district, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

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Old Town Pasadena, which is comprised of blocks upon blocks of fabulous boutiques, restaurants and specialty stores (like The Soap Kitchen, which makes the best lip balm I have ever owned), features stunning architecture, spacious courtyards and lots and lots of brick. It is hands down my favorite place to shop in all of Southern California. And because I used to live about a mile from it, walking there daily provided me with my only form of exercise. See, shopping can be good for you! The area also has a bit of a celebrity twist. In the 1940s, Old Town Pasadena fell into serious disarray and became a haven for criminal and drug activity. Thankfully though, in the early ‘90s, the site’s potential was realized by several real estate developers and businessmen who set about revitalizing the district and wound up turning it into what is now one of L.A.’s most popular shopping and dining venues. One of the men who was involved in that revitalization was none other than producer Garry Marshall, although he ended up backing out after the project almost bankrupted him. He talks quite a bit about the venture in his fabulous book My Happy Days in Hollywood.

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The area also sees quite a bit of filming. In fact, just the other day I learned that the Urban Outfitters in Old Town was featured in the 2004 movie National Treasure, in the scene in which Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) and Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) go shopping for new clothes.

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The center of Old Town Pasadena is located at 1 Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit the district’s official website here.

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7. The Starbucks at Lake & Green – Not the closest Starbucks to my former apartment, but my most-favorite one and easily the best in all of Pasadena. I would walk about a mile out of my way each day to visit this particular branch, that’s how much I love the place. At most Starbucks locations, the wait is atrocious and items are invariably out of stock – there is one in particular in the Pasadena area that shall remain unnamed (753 S. Arroyo Parkway) that is constantly out of whole milk and it drives me up the wall. This particular store, though, has GOT IT DOWN! I can honestly say that in the six years I frequented the place, I never had to wait longer than five minutes from the time I walked through the front door to the time I walked out, drink in hand. I love, love, love this Starbucks. The GC would often try to get me to stop at other Sbux outposts that happened to be on the way to wherever we were going on that particular day, and every single time he got his way and we ended up at another store, we would get stuck in some god-forsaken line and lose about ten minutes time. Men! I became such a regular at Lake & Green that when one of my favorite baristas, Eve, won Partner of the Quarter for her district, I was invited to the event, as were a few other customers. That’s just the way the Lake & Green store is. It is like the Cheers bar of Starbucks stores – where everybody knows your name. My favorite Starbucks is located at 82 South Lake Avenue in Pasadena.

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8. Betty Nails & Spa – Anyone who lives in L.A. knows that most nail salons there are conveyor-belt type places that can be found on pretty much each and every street corner. Some are even downright skeevy. Not Betty Nails & Spa, though. As soon as I walked in for my first visit, I immediately felt comfortable and welcomed. The place was clean and laid-back, the stylists friendly and the prices extremely reasonable. What I liked best, though, was the fact that the manicurist took her time. In all of my visits there, I never felt like they were trying to rush through the process to move on to the next customer. They also never tried to upsell me. Quite the contrary, actually – the first time I asked for a callus removal (Cat, from the Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge, had told me how fabulous callus removals are and she was right!), I was told that I really did not need one. The best part about Betty’s manicures and pedicures, though, are the massages. Sigh! After I discovered Betty’s and became a regular, I recommended the place to my mom and she subsequently became a regular, too. When she moved to desert, she would often lament to me that she could not find a nail salon that she liked nearly as much that didn’t cost an arm and a leg – which doesn’t bode well for me now that I live there, as well. Needless to say, my nails – and hair – will be suffering due to my move. Sad smile Betty Nails & Spa is located at 766 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

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9. El Portal – Our favorite Pasadena-area Mexican eatery. El Portal is a family-owned and operated place that specializes in Yucatan cuisine and has been awarded Pasadena Weekly’s “Best Mexican Restaurant” more times than I can count. The Grim Cheaper has long been addicted to their shredded beef tacos and while I typically do not have a hard time sticking to my carb-free diabetic-friendly diet when dining out, whenever I am at El Portal I canNOT resist their cheese quesadillas! They are like my kryptonite. I do not know how one can make a quesadilla stand out from others (I mean, aren’t they just tortillas and cheese?), but no other quesadilla that I have ever sampled even compares to the ones at El Portal. They are that good! El Portal’s champagne, unfortunately, wasn’t, though. The restaurant used to serve a very sweet brand of sparking wine that I was not at all a fan of, so one day I decided to ask El Portal’s owner, Abel Ramirez, if he would ever consider stocking a different variety. I mentioned that the rather inexpensive Freixenet brand was one of my favorites (my best friend actually calls me “The Freixenet Girl”) and the very next week when we sat down at the bar, our favorite bartender popped a Freixenet split down in front of me! How incredible is that? I just about fell over I was so excited. The bartender also later told us that the restaurant has been selling quite a bit more champagne now since they made the switch, which I was over the moon about. For the best quesadillas in the world, head to El Portal, which is located at 695 East Green Street, inside of Arcade Lane, in Pasadena. You can visit the restaurant’s website here.

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10. Our Former Loft – The GC and I have both long been obsessed with New York loft-style architecture, so when we toured the one pictured below while looking for our first apartment together in 2008, we signed the lease immediately. We absolutely LOVED living in what we took to calling “our perfect little loft”, despite the fact that it was only 750 square feet. And while we did end up desperately needing more space as the years went on, it was truly heartbreaking to leave the place and not a day goes by that I don’t miss it.

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Especially the floor-to-ceiling brick wall.

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One thing I will NOT miss about our loft, though, is the tiny closet, which I actually had to split with the GC! For a hyper-organized clotheshorse like myself, sharing such a small closet was miserable.

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As you can see, because the closet was so small and because I have so many clothes, the result was a rather disorganized storage system, which was enough to drive the Monica Geller in me crazy on a daily basis. I get an eye twitch just looking at the pictures below. Winking smile

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So when we decided to move to the desert, I stole a line from Carrie Bradshaw and told the GC, “Just get me a really big closet!” Which he did, and which my dad, who is quite the craftsman (he constructed the bookshelves, ladder and butcher block pictured in the above photographs of our loft), custom-built for me. The original closet, as it came with our new apartment, is pictured below.

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I asked my dad to base the design on Emily Schuman’s closet (from fave website Cupcakes and Cashmere), which you can take a look at here. The result is pictured below and, while it is still not completely finished, I could NOT be happier with it. I feel like I’ve died and gone to closet heaven! I keep calling it my Barbie Dream Closet and literally can’t get enough of it. I think it is safe to say that I will be spending the vast majority of my time in there, just gazing around in awe. Smile

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Although two of my very favorite area locales, I purposely left The Huntington Library and the Walsh house from Beverly Hills, 90210 out of this post because both are featured quite prominently on My L.A. Must-Stalk List, which you can read here.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

My Favorite Pasadena Places – Part I

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While the Grim Cheaper and I are absolutely loving our new apartment and desert locale, I am, of course, feeling quite nostalgic about Pasadena, the fabulous city that I called home for over thirteen years. There are so many things that I am going to miss about the place – even my former building’s Ugly Naked Guy. Well, I’m not going to miss him, per se – just the fact that my building had one and that I once shared that small similarity with the Friends gang. But that is a different story for a different time (and it’s a doozy, let me tell you!). For today and Monday, though, while caught up in memories of my beloved Rose City, I thought I would go a little off-topic by blogging about my ten favorite places in Pasadena. None have a filming or celebrity angle, necessarily, but I hope my fellow stalkers will enjoy this walk down memory lane nonetheless. So without further ado . . .

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1. Lula Mae Gift Shop – My very favorite store in the entire world! While planning for this post, I made a list of all of the places that I needed to take photographs of and Lula Mae was one of them. Then I realized that the two pictures below (which my dad took last year of me with Marci, Lula’s owner, and Julia, a longtime employee) perfectly encapsulate what the shop is all about. Walking into Lula Mae is like walking into a giant hug and what I love most about the place – besides the fabulous merchandise, which is truly one-of-a-kind – is the people who work there. There are honestly no words to describe how much I am going to miss Marci and Julia (as wells as Alison and Reyana). The Lula ladies have all become my good friends and saying good-bye to them was the hardest part of leaving Pasadena for me. I bawled for a full two blocks after I left the store that evening and still haven’t fully recovered. Ironically enough, Marci was the one who gave me the last push I needed to move. The GC and I had been going back and forth over the decision for weeks and one day Marci said, “Well, what are you going to regret more? Leaving Pasadena or not being with your parents?” We gave notice to our apartment building just a few days later. Marci is one of the most amazing people I have ever met – she is the absolute embodiment of Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) from You’ve Got Mail. In fact, I am convinced that Nora Ephron met Marci one day while writing the screenplay for the 1998 flick and then based the character off of her.

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Lula Mae was where I would go whenever I needed inspiration, a good laugh, a cheering-up, some girl talk, or a fabulously unique gift. LA Weekly awarded the site “Best One-Stop Shopping” in 2011 and had this to say, “You know that friend of yours who always upstages the $10 bottle of wine you pull out of your purse when she shows up at parties with the most adorable, clever little trinket wrapped perfectly in a colorful vintage gift bag? Well that smug b*tch probably has been shopping at Lula Mae for years now.” That smug b*tch was me. Friends learned long ago to stop asking where I purchased a certain card or gift because the answer was invariably “Lula Mae”. When I told my parents we were moving to the desert, the first words out of my mom’s mouth were, “But what are you going to do without Lula Mae?” Not joking. The store was that much a part of my life. In fact, the GC asked if Marci factored our move into her 2013 revenue projections. LOL I honestly don’t know how I will survive without my weekly (oh, who am I kidding) daily Lula dose. Sad smile It’s the most adorable store I have ever visited in my life (the place even has a shop kitty!) and I cannot more highly recommend a visit. Lula Mae is located at 100 North Fair Oaks Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit the store’s website here.

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2. Vroman’s Bookstore – My very favorite bookstore. Because I love Vroman’s so much and shop there so often, I have written countless posts about the place over the years. Consequently, in the hopes of sparing y’all any redundancy, I will keep this blurb brief. Let me just say that Vroman’s is the type of place where you can walk in and say, “I heard about this book and I can’t remember the title or who wrote it, nor what it is even about. I know it has to do with a bookseller and that it takes place in a past era and the cover is a mustard yellow color and has a Sherlock Holmes-looking guy on it.” And they will know exactly the book you are talking about. I walked in the other day and said just that and, sure enough, it wasn’t two minutes before I had the novel I had so poorly remembered, The Shadow of the Wind, in my hands. The picture below was taken back in 2011 on a day when Parks and Recreation was filming at Vroman’s. You can read my post about that filming here. Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit their website here. Be sure to check out their Special Events page as celebrity authors stop by regularly for signings.

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3. The Slaw Dogs – I discovered this place (thanks to Marci from Lula Mae) about two years ago and it became such a favorite that before long I was dining there a good four or five times a week. The eatery serves the. best. hot. dogs. ever. And this is coming from a true frankfurter connoisseur. The dogs are so good, in fact, that when I took my friends Beth and Kim, who were in town visiting from Ohio, they actually later dreamed about their meal! Yes, The Slaw Dogs has the power to enter your dreams! And the establishment even serves champagne! What more could a stalker ask for?

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Pictured below is my regular order – a turkey dog with melted cheddar cheese and ranch dressing. I am salivating just looking at it right now! To stay diabetic-friendly, though, I don’t eat the bun. For those of you who aren’t diabetic, The Slaw Dogs serves a variety of carb-loaded options, including a Mac and Cheese Dog (with macaroni and cheese, bacon, grilled onions, and Dijon mustard), The Picnic Dog (with homemade potato salad, BBQ sauce, onion rings, and a dill pickle spear), and the TNT Super Dog, aka “The Good Timer” (with beer chili, cheddar cheese, bacon, pastrami, French fries, grilled onions, and a fried egg, all wrapped in a giant tortilla). There are also vegetarian options and salads, for those who prefer a healthier meal. If you’re in the area, skip Pink’s (the lines are long and the dogs just average) and hit up The Slaw Dogs instead. Several celebs have even been known to stop in on occasion, including Wentworth Miller, whom I once dined next to. The eatery has a few locations, but the Pasadena outpost can be found at 720 North Lake Avenue. You can visit The Slaw Dogs website here.

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4. The Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge – I discovered this place in all of its white marble and pink-accented glory in June 2011 and never looked back. And while the GC likes to say, “You pay someone to wash your hair!”, what I am actually paying for is a professional blow-dry. Because the Blo-Out Lounge prices are so incredibly reasonable, I was able to buy a monthly membership and get my hair done every four or five days. (Yes, I know – I am spoiled!) The Lounge was a lifesaver for me because I have extremely curly and extremely thick hair. Blowing it out on my own takes a good two hours and is a huge pain in the butt, so, before discovering the Lounge, I would often just leave it curly and pull it back in a clip. After becoming a member, though, everyday became a good hair day. So much so that Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, once called me up to ask if I had gotten a makeover at some point before meeting her. She had been going through my old celebrity photographs and, apparently, I used to be a hot mess. LOL My answer, “No, I just discovered the Blo-Out Lounge.”

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Not only did the Lounge change my hair-life, but the stylists who work there all became my close friends. Even if I went back to wearing my hair curly, I would still want to visit the salon regularly just to hang out. I honestly do not know what I am going to do now that I live in Palm Springs. I can say this, though – the Lounge will be my VERY FIRST stop on every single visit back to L.A. And while I have my favorites [Noelle (who is pictured), Cat, Yvette, Arlyn and Dinga], ALL of the girls who work at the Lounge are fabulous and, in almost two years time, I have NEVER received a single bad blow-out. The Pasadena Blo-Out Lounge is located at 62 North Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit their website here.

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5. Vertical Wine Bistro – Sadly, while the GC and I had dined once before at Vertical (I blogged about it here), we only just discovered the wonder that is their happy hour about six weeks prior to our move. I can easily say that Vertical Wine Bistro has Pasadena’s BEST happy hour, hands down! The prices are reasonable, the food spectacular and the servings huge. We love the place so much that it became our regular Friday night spot. It was also where we chose to eat dinner our last night in Pasadena. Because we had only been dining at Vertical habitually for a short time, we did not know any of the bartenders very well, but, amazingly, when one of them heard that we were moving the following day, she ended up purchasing our entire meal! She said that she and the other servers would often comment on how nice we were and how they wished more of their customers were like us! How AMAZING is that?!? It was the perfect way to spend our last night in Pasadena and made me love the eatery all the more. (Because I had blogged about the place before, I thought I had plenty of pictures of it and therefore did not take any new ones for this post. When I looked through my old photos, though, I realized that they had been taken on an iPhone and were of very poor quality. D’oh! So I had to “borrow” the one below off of the Vertical website.)

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While the GC LOVES Vertical’s Sliders (I have to say that I even like them and I am NOT a hamburger fan), I am absolutely addicted to the Sautéed Mushrooms side order (pictured below). It is literally one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life. The Fried Calamari is also amazing! I canNOT wait to go back there the next time we are in town. Vertical Wine Bistro is located at 70 North Raymond Avenue in Old Town Pasadena. You can visit their website here. The restaurant’s happy hour is offered Tuesday through Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. and all day on Sunday.

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Stay tuned for My Favorite Pasadena Places – Part II, which will be posted on Monday.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile